


Easy Silence

by queenfanfiction



Series: nothing so rare or precious [1]
Category: Pundit RPF (US)
Genre: Multi, SOWSO, prompt!fic, rare!verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-23
Updated: 2011-04-23
Packaged: 2017-10-18 14:09:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/189681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenfanfiction/pseuds/queenfanfiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their relationship is not a simple one, especially given what goes on in the world these days, but Rachel is glad that they've somehow made it work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Easy Silence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bessemerprocess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bessemerprocess/gifts).



> Written for [name="bessemerprocess"]' prompt from DW's ThoseStoriesPlus' Create-A-Thon. Title taken from the Dixie Chicks' "Easy Silence," which I guess would mean that I also fulfilled my own TSP prompt? And the fact that I now have plans for at least two sequels in this 'verse IS ENTIRELY HENRY'S FAULT OKAY.
> 
> Beta Credit JESUS: [name="sarken"] was, as usual, AWESOME. (She'll be even more awesome when she posts her 80s AU. ^_^)

Keith likes to call them "the best-kept secret in New York City," which isn't far off the mark, really.

It's not like any of them are fond of sharing the sordid details of their personal lives to anyone outside of immediate family and close friends—even their interns and staff don't have the full story, just that if anything should happen Keith will spread the word to whoever needs to know—and it's not like anyone would expect the three of them to be together as anything more than really good friends. It's just that Rachel's sexuality has always been more than complicated so she usually prefers to call herself "lesbian," Richard is straight except when it comes to Anderson, and Anderson is open to pretty much anything.

And it's not like any of them openly wear their commitment on their sleeves, or on their fingers, as it were. Instead, they keep their rings on fine filigree chains, Rachel's choice, the metal so thin that it will never show on camera, no matter which low-cut blouse she wears under her suit jacket. Anderson always keeps his tucked into his shirt pocket ("Over my heart," he once said with a smile); and Richard refuses to go into the field without it, swearing that his has the power to turn bullets.

While Rachel would normally laugh in the face of superstition, whenever she watches her boys reporting from the ground, she silently prays that Richard is right.

* *

Rachel lets herself into Anderson's apartment with her spare key and barely dances out of the way in time when Molly leaps out, her tail wagging joyfully in greeting. In no time, she and Poppy are rolling on the floor together in a mass of fur while Rachel tidies up whatever mess Anderson left behind this time before CNN called him out to cover Cairo—not a terrible hardship for him, since he'll at least be able to see Richard in person, but it's worse for Rachel now that she's all alone in New York with no one but the dogs (and occasionally a beer-laden Keith) to keep her company.

She's barely finished cleaning out the slightly-rank dishes in the kitchen sink when her phone starts to ring. Poppy and Molly, who have finally followed Rachel into the apartment proper, howl in unison from the living room while Rachel fumbles for her phone. "Hello?" she answers, a little breathless.

"Rach, it's me." Richard's voice is tense with static, and with something else. "Anderson's been attacked."

" _What?_ " Rachel leans against the kitchen counter heavily. The dogs suddenly fall silent, as if sensing their mistress' sudden distress, leaving Anderson's apartment feeling so much more empty than before. "When? Where?"

"In Tahrir Square. Some pro-Mubarak thugs cornered him and his team today, I haven't been able to get the details. I think he's OK, since CNN's already promising footage of it soon—Anderson kept taping straight through the whole thing, can you believe?"

"That does sound like him." Molly makes her way across the kitchen tiles, whining softly and nudging Rachel's sneakers with her nose; Rachel bends down and scratches behind the dog's ears, grateful for any distraction. "I'm at his place now. You're sure he's—" _All right? Alive? Not dragged off by the mob, beaten, and left to die in some Cairo gutter?_

"Rachel, stop worrying," Richard chides when Rachel can't bring herself to finish the question. "Knowing Anderson, I'm sure he gave better than anything he got. I'm going to track him down myself as soon as I finish the next piece, and then I'll call you as soon as I do, OK?"

Richard's words are buried under a sharp hail of gunfire, and Rachel can't keep herself from wincing. "That sounds close."

"It was," Richard agrees. Someone yells in the background, and Richard shouts back in Arabic before turning back to the phone. "Listen, I have to go. Call you later?"

"Do, please," is all Rachel can say, and she stares at her phone helplessly as the caller ID of Richard's satellite phone disappears from the screen. Helpless, that's what she feels now, and the helplessness is by far the worst part of all the waiting. Rachel has always harbored a special professional envy for the correspondents in the field, at first because she wanted to be _there,_ getting her hands dirty (and sometimes a little bloody) with the live coverage of any given crisis. And if she is totally honest, she'll also admit to craving the thrill of putting her life on the line to get the truth out in the public eye.

But now, Rachel's main source of envy lies in the fact that anything in the world is better than playing this waiting game from afar and not being able to do a thing about it—especially when both of her boys are already there, on the front, in danger, without her.

In the end, it is Anderson who calls her back, and Rachel nearly sobs with relief when she hears his voice on the other end of the line. She won't get to hold him in her arms until over a week later, won't be able to kiss the light scratches and bruising hidden by Anderson's hairline until they retreat from the bustle of the arrival gate of JFK to the solitude of their bedroom, but in that one blessed moment she doesn't care.

Anderson, Richard's Anderson, _her_ Anderson, is alive, and that is all that really matters.

"Hey, sweetie," Anderson says from a continent away, and Rachel wipes her eyes dry with a few tissues and tries to smile against her tears.

* *

For Rachel, life in New York isn't exactly a walk in the park, either.

Anderson finally comes back from Egypt, only slightly worse for wear and already talking of flying out to Libya. But at this Rachel puts her foot down—as does Richard, who had snuck across the Egyptian border into Benghazi just a few days earlier and who now gives Anderson a stern talking-to via Skype one afternoon, local time. Rachel isn't around to hear it, but Richard reassures her later that Anderson has set aside all thoughts of reporting live from Libya—at least, for now.

And then Japan implodes, in so many more ways than one.

Anderson does go to Japan, only to return within days due to the mounting radiation concerns. When Rachel meets him at the airport for the second time in as many weeks, he looks as haunted as he did after Katrina and Haiti, and there is only so much Rachel can do to wipe the look of sheer devastation from his eyes. Richard remains in Benghazi since that is his realm of expertise, but he keeps in close touch with Lee from NBC Nightly and never fails to update Rachel and Anderson on the Japanese situation during their frequent conference calls together. And if Anderson seems slightly jealous of Lee Cowan talking to Richard on a daily basis, Richard pretends not to notice, while Rachel instead kicks Anderson oh-so-subtly in the shins under the kitchen counter.

And at TRMS headquarters, the level of frenetic activity is at its highest since as far back as anyone can remember. The producers are glued to their computers, fingers flying across the keyboards, when they aren't making phone calls to try to book their next nuclear-related guest; interns scramble to be the first in line at the copy machine and the coffeemaker in the break room, often getting in each other's way and causing massive spills of coffee and paper to flood the hallways and forcing everyone to watch where they step when they leave their offices.

As for Rachel—Rachel never stops. From the moment she steps into her office to the minute she collapses in her own bed over fifteen hours later, Rachel is reading the latest articles on nuclear physics, arguing with her producers over how best to describe the possible outcomes of a nuclear meltdown without terrifying a lay viewership, and watching the latest footage from Japan with a growing, gut-wrenching horror. Poppy sulks that his mistress is actively ignoring him, but Rachel hardly notices, as deeply wrapped up in the news as she is these days, because even when she is at home she keeps the TV on at low volume to monitor the streaming news from Daiichi and the tsunami-stricken areas.

The long hours and lack of sleep finally begin to take their toll by the end of the week. Even Rachel notices the darkening circles under her eyes, feels her clothes settling heavier on her thinner frame, hears the way her tired tongue slurs the ends of some of the words as she reads them from the teleprompter. And from the fact that Anderson is already waiting for her in her apartment when she arrives home late Friday night, she wasn't the only one to notice, either.

"I thought you were going to be late," Rachel says as she sets down her computer bag on the table in the hallway. "Didn't you have meetings or something?"

"Nothing that couldn't be canceled." Anderson shrugs, his back to Rachel as he tends to the steaming kettle on the stove in her open kitchenette. "Besides, it's already past midnight."

Oh. Right.

Rachel sighs, rolls her shoulders free of the day's tension that never quite leaves her, and makes her way to the living room before plopping down on the sofa. Friday. That means two full days before she can get back on the air, two full days of watching other people's coverage and wanting to throw something at the TV for the inaccuracies and falsehoods that she can do nothing to correct. Rachel resignedly reaches towards the coffee table for the remote control—

—only to have Anderson snatch it right out from under her fingertips.

"Hey!" she protests, but Anderson silences her with a quick kiss.

"No TV," he declares, pulling back with the remote held out of Rachel's grasp. "No news, no worrying, no lifting a finger for you until Monday morning. And you can be sure I'm going to enforce that like hell, missy."

"But—!"

"No 'buts,' either." Anderson smooths back Rachel's hair and presses his lips to the top of her head. "Richard threatened to break contract and catch the first flight back from Tripoli until I promised that I'd have you looking as good as new by Monday's show."

Rachel stifles a yawn and a smile. "And if I don't comply?"

"Then I'm to tie you down and have my wicked way with you." Anderson grins. "That one was from Keith, actually."

In the end, it doesn't even need to go that far (much to Rachel's chagrin). She winds up falling asleep on the sofa, in Anderson's warm embrace with her cheek pillowed on his half-bare chest, rocked to sleep by the gentlest lullaby of his beating heart. Molly and Poppy are curled up at their feet, the TV remains blissfully off, and for the first time in a long time Rachel does not dream.

When she wakes up the next morning, her dark circles are gone but Anderson is still there, and over breakfast they say nothing because nothing needs to be said, and Rachel feels like the most normal, the most rested, and the luckiest woman in the whole wide world.

* *

In hindsight, Rachel is very glad that Richard convinced Anderson not to join him in Libya. Had both her boys been there, she's not sure how she would have survived. She probably would have vibrated into little pieces from all the stress and worry for their safety.

Rachel knows full well that both Richard and Anderson are grown men, experienced reporters and travelers abroad in their own rights. They are more than capable of fending for themselves in dangerous situations, and yet Rachel still allows a little niggling of concern to remain rooted in the back of her brain, ready to spring into action at a moment's notice.

For example, when Richard calls to tell her he is sending in some new footage to NBC for the evening newscast, something in his tone trips the wire in Rachel's brain and sends her into full worry mode. As it turns out, when she presses him for more detail, she has every reason to be concerned.

"There was a _what?_ " Her yelp carries through the open door of her office into the corridor beyond; Bill pops his head into the doorway to check on her, but Rachel waves him off. "You want to run that by me again?"

"Rachel, please." Richard has the grace to sound sheepish, even from over several thousand miles away. "I swear to God, it wasn't anything big."

"Then why did you call to tell me ahead of time?" Rachel demands, feeling her blood pressure spike. "And when is a mortar attack on you and your crew ever _not_ a big thing?"

"Rachel, they weren't attacking _us!_ They were shooting at the rebels, and besides, the mortar landed at least fifty feet away—"

"Richard, fifty feet is not an acceptable margin of error! If their hand had twitched when they fired, you'd be dead now!"

"But Rachel," Richard says softly, "I'm not dead. I'm fine. We're all fine. Isn't that what counts?"

Rachel heaves a sigh but doesn't answer. She's not so naïve as to think the world is a fairytale, that everyone will always have a happily-ever-after, but it's still a hard sock in the gut to think that those she loves consider surviving a mortar attack a plus in their life's accounting.

"Rachel?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm still here." Rachel takes off her glasses and rubs the bridge of her nose fretfully. "I suppose asking you to stay safe is kind of pointless now, isn't it?"

"Well, unless you want to talk to Gaddhafi yourself and see if he's willing to stop firing on the rebels, yes. I hear he's open to listening to beautiful women for advice."

"Very funny, Engel." Rachel's phone beeps with an incoming text message; it's from Anderson. _nbc's saying richard's team was shelled. I can't reach him. you?_ "Anderson's worried about you, too. Says he can't reach you."

"Damn—could you tell him I'll try to call him back tonight? All the NBC phones are on the fritz."

"Will do." Rachel sends a reply back to Anderson ( _Talking to him now, he says he'll call you back later / R_ ) and finds that, as annoyed as she is that Richard is now in the direct line of fire, it's almost impossible to stay angry at him. "I've a staff meeting in five, so I guess I should go—"

"OK." Richard's voice is warm, and Rachel wishes (not for the first time) that she could hold the rest of him and never ever let go. "Love you, sweetie."

"Love you too," Rachel says, and when she hangs up she sees Bill stick his head in the doorway again.

"Trouble in paradise?" he asks as she gets up. Rachel shrugs.

"Depends on your definition of paradise," she says, and pushes past her producer into the hallway outside.

In the end, it's nearly two weeks later when Rachel starts awake at two in the morning from a nightmare of raining fire in a desert hellscape to find a shadowy figure standing in the bedroom doorway.

"Sorry," apologizes the shadow. "I didn't mean to wake you—"

"Richard, shut up and get your ass in bed already."

Richard obeys, stripping down to his undershirt as Rachel prods and pushes a sleeping Anderson to one side to make more room in the middle of the bed. Anderson snorts a little in his sleep, but otherwise he doesn't protest the change, as oblivious to the world as he is. By the time Richard crawls in between them, wading through rumpled sheets like a tugboat sloshing a path across the ocean, there is just enough space for him to cuddle next to Rachel with his back pressing tight against Anderson.

Rachel wraps her legs around Richard's and shivers. "You're cold."

"Yeah. Almost makes me wish I were back in Libya." Rachel clings tighter, and Richard quickly adds, "But nothing's the same as home. I'm glad I'm back."

"Good." Rachel buries her face against his shoulder. "Now hush, some of us have shows to attend to in the morning."

"Night," Richard whispers back, and he wraps his arm around Rachel as she snuggles closer. Anderson shifts closer, too, and in his sleep he flings his arm over Richard until his fingers are just brushing Rachel's arm, and Rachel falls asleep feeling as if her world has found all its missing parts and is now complete.

* *

Sometimes Rachel isn't sure how they've managed to stay together for all these years, across the oceans and continents that so often separate them during their lines of work. It would've been far easier for them to give up, for them to drift apart, for them to stop caring.

But on those mornings that she wakes up with her cheek pressed against Richard's collarbone and her fingers miraculously entwined with Anderson's, she is very glad that none of them like anything that is _easy._


End file.
